


Infiltration

by ShadowQuest



Series: One Final Leap [9]
Category: Quantum Leap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 19:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3867316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowQuest/pseuds/ShadowQuest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al's desperate to save Cat, and comes up with a dangerous plan to get her home safely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infiltration

Chapter Eight

“Infiltration”

“Al.  Come on, Al, wake up.”

Al grumbled something unintelligible and rolled away from the voice, crunching down further under the covers.  He didn’t want to get up, didn’t even want to open his eyes.  The world could go on without him just fine.

There was an exasperated sigh, and then someone roughly shook his shoulder.  “Get up.  Now.”

“Go ‘way,” he muttered.

“No.  It’s eight o’clock in the morning.  You need to get your sorry ass out of bed _right now_.”

Angered by that comment, Al rolled over and opened his eyes, then groaned and immediately closed them.  “Beat it, Sam.”

Sam yanked the covers down, grabbed Al by the hand and tried to pull him out of the bed.  “I don’t have time for this nonsense, Al.  The cops are here.”

That finally woke Al up completely, and he sat up.  “Is it Cat?  Did they find her?”

Sam shook his head, wincing inwardly at the desperation in his friend’s voice; it’d been three days, and they still hadn’t heard from Cat’s kidnappers.  “No.”  He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair.  “I’m sorry, Al, but...no, there hasn’t been any word yet.  They...they want to question you.”

Al frowned.  “What?”

“They...they want to question you.  Tina’s trying to delay them, but...”

Al mumbled something in Italian that didn’t sound particularly nice, rubbed his face with both hands, then made a face as he got up and reached for his robe.  “I need a shave.  And a shower.  And I should put my uniform on.”

“There isn’t time, Al.”

He arched an eyebrow and gave Sam a scathing look.  “I don’t dawdle, Samuel.”  With that, he disappeared into his bathroom.  In five minutes he was out, clean-shaven, his hair still wet from the shower.  He crossed to the dresser and got underwear and socks, pulling them on as he went to the closet and got out his uniform.  In another three minutes he was fully dressed and looked every inch the retired Admiral.  Sam was impressed, and said as much.

“That’ll certainly make a statement,” he said with a light chuckle.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Al told him, then walked out of his bedroom to find out what the police wanted.

Sam trailed him quietly.  He leaned against a wall, arms folded over his chest, and tried to fade into the background.  Two days ago, Tina had suggested they all move topside, “in case the police need to contact us for some reason,” and it turned out to have been a good suggestion.  Trying to explain to local law enforcement why they lived underground would have been just a bit difficult.

There were two detectives sitting on the couch across from Tina, who looked like she was barely keeping her composure.  When Al came in, she got up and moved to his side.

“Admiral Calavicci?” the lead officer asked, getting to his feet, and showing his badge.  “I’m Detective Madison, and this is my partner Detective Hawke.  We have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

Al tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes just a bit.  “What is this in regards to?”

Detective Hawke got to her feet, as well, and pulled a notebook from her coat pocket.  Both officers were plainclothes, and she wore a Navajo squash blossom necklace, the turquoise contrasting nicely with her coppery skin and her peach-colored blouse.  “According to Doctor Fuller’s report, your daughter was abducted three days ago.”

Al nodded, crossing his arms and fixing them with a steady, unreadable gaze.

“She mentioned that there was a possibility your ex-wife might’ve been involved.”

Again Al nodded; Sammy Jo had told them that was what she’d told the cops, since they wouldn’t have believed the truth.

Detective Hawke studied him for a few moments, then glanced at her partner, who shrugged.  She shook her head just slightly, then resumed.  “Did you know your ex-wife’s body was found?”

Al raised an eyebrow.  “No, I was unaware of that.  Do you know how she died?”

“She’s not dead, Admiral,” Detective Madison said.  “She’s in a coma.  She was found in an alley behind a strip mall.”

“The last I had heard, she was in rehab,” Al stated, no emotion in his voice at all.

“That was the last you had seen her?” Detective Madison asked.

“Yes.  There had been some...trouble, concerning my daughter, and we...discussed that situation.”

Hawke made some notes, then said, “They found your daughter’s kidnapper.”  She watched his reaction carefully.

“But not my daughter?”  His voice was still level, although he did have to swallow hard before he asked.

“Unfortunately, no.  The body was found in an abandoned SUV; he’d been shot through the heart.”

Al raised his eyebrow again, but gave no other response, which apparently was annoying the two detectives.

“You seem rather...calm about all of this, Admiral,” Madison said.

Al turned to face him.  “Would you prefer I was an emotional wreck, Detective?  Sobbing and begging you to find my daughter?”

“Well, that _is_ typical in situations like this,” Hawke admitted.

Al looked at her.  “And what good would that do?”

That question seemed to stump her; she opened her mouth, changed her mind, started to say something else, changed her mind again, and gave up.

Then Madison took a step closer to him and said, “It was a remarkably good shot.  Something, say, that an expert marksman would be capable of.  One bullet, straight to the heart.  Most people, they don’t even know where the heart’s actually located.”

Al squared his shoulders, and asked, “Just what are you implying, Detective?”

“Nothing.  Merely an observation.”

“I was a pilot in the Navy, Detective.  Not a sniper.”

Hawke made another note, then flipped the book shut.  “Well, that’s all that we have right now.  Thank you for your time, Admiral.”

She started to move for the door, but Al blocked her way.  “Uh-uh.  You don’t come in here and make vague accusations that _I’m_ somehow responsible for what happened to my daughter, and then just leave.  My daughter was abducted, in broad daylight, and the daughter of my best friend was shot.  It’s been three days and there’s been no contact from the kidnappers, no ransom demand, nothing.  Now you tell me my ex-wife’s in a coma and the man who took my daughter is dead, but you have no leads?”

Hawke stammered a few moments, then said, “I-I’m sorry, Admiral.  I...I really wish we had better news.  We...we’re just...doing our job.”

Al leaned towards her a little, and his voice was deadly quiet when he asked, “Am I a suspect?”

She swallowed hard and shook her head.  “N-no.  Nothing like that.  I...we just...”

“It sounded to me like you were implying that I shot the man who took my daughter.”

“We just thought...perhaps you might have an idea who did,” Madison told him, moving to stand next to his partner.

Al straightened and smiled, but it was a cold smile.  “Then why didn’t you ask that, rather than insinuate I was responsible?”

“We should have, and I apologize,” Madison said.  He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Al.  “If you hear from her kidnappers, please, call us immediately.  Or if you think of anyone...”

Al took the card and slipped it into a pocket without looking at it.  “I don’t know who could be behind this, Detective, or I’d tell you.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, my wife and I would like to have our breakfast.”

The detectives took their cue and left.  The moment they were gone Al slumped into the couch and started crying.  Tina sat next to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.  Sam very quietly left them alone, and returned to his own home.

As he walked back to his house, Sam mentally replayed the fight he and Al had had the night before.

 

_“It’s my fault, Al,” Sam said._

_Al frowned at him.  “What’s your fault?”_

_“This.  All of it – you getting killed, Cat being kidnapped.”_

_“How the hell is any of this your fault, Sam?”_

_“Because I came home.”_

_Al scoffed.  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it!  Sam...”  Al shook his head in growing frustration.  “All those years, all you_ ever _did was good.  No matter whose life you were in, no matter what the situation was, even if it was something you hated, like being in the KKK, you did what was right to fix lives and then move on.”_

_“I know that, Al.  And then I get here, and...look at all the_ wrong _that’s happened.  Gooshie got killed saving your life, Cat got beat up because she wanted to move in with you and Tina, you got killed, Cat got kidnapped...”_

_Al bit back the growl, mostly.  “Sam.  Stop being such a big...stupid head and_ think _, will ya?  None of this is your fault.  None of it.  Yeah, things have been a bit...messy, but...that’s life.  We’ll get through it.  We always have.  Hell, I got through worse things than this before I met you.”  Al smiled, but Sam was having none of it._

_They’d argued for another half-hour, before Al finally stormed off, telling Sam they’d both be happier after a good night’s sleep, especially since Al wouldn’t be able to strangle Sam if he was asleep._

This morning he’d gone over to their house to apologize for the argument, but shortly after Tina had let him in the cops had shown up, and he hadn’t had the chance.

But seeing the anguish on his friend’s face after the police had left broke Sam’s heart all over again, and he couldn’t help feeling that he’d been right, and Al had been too stubborn to agree.

Al was right about one thing, though.  Sam always did the right thing, no matter how hard that was to do.  And he could do it again.  Sam changed his path; rather than returning to his house, he headed for the innocent-looking shed that housed the elevator to reach the Project complex. 

 

Had anyone ever stumbled across their location, all they would’ve seen was a handful of hacienda-style houses near a large mountain in the middle of the New Mexican desert.  It looked like nothing more than a small community, possibly one of the many that had seemed like a good idea at the time, but faltered due to lack of interest and funds.  No one would have ever guessed that the mountain was a facade sheltering a top-secret government-funded scientific experiment.

Even though she’d moved into one of the empty houses, Sammy Jo spent most of her time in the complex itself, working with Alia and Tina to come up with a virus that could be delivered to the other project’s computer, something so virulent that it would totally wipe out that computer’s memory so no files could ever be accessed again, and render the computer useless.  In effect, to “kill” the artificial intelligence.

Tina was having a hard time with that thought; from what they knew, Lothos was very similar to Ziggy, and she’d grown...attached to their computer over the many years she’d known and worked with it.

Right now, while they waited for Tina to arrive, Sammy Jo and Alia were talking about just how similar the other computer was to Ziggy.

“She developed a personality,” Sammy Jo said.  “Even back when Dad first started Leaping, Ziggy had...well, a bit of an ego.  One time she got a little upset and cranked up the air conditioning so high Al had to wear a fur coat just to keep warm in the Imaging Chamber.”

Alia giggled.  “I bet that was a sight!”

“There were other little...incidents, but she never allowed anyone to get hurt.  She’d have mood swings, or get depressed, but she always did her job.  In her way, she came to care about Dad and Al.”

“Lothos wasn’t like that.  I think...if he ever experienced any emotions, it was hatred.  He was...” She closed her eyes and shuddered.  “Pure evil.  They all were.”

Sammy Jo reached over and took the older woman’s hand.  “We’ll stop them, Alia.  I promise.  We’ll make that virus, and Al will save Cat, and we’ll put an end to them, once and for all.”

Alia looked at her, tears sliding down her face.  “How can you be so sure?”

Sammy Jo smiled.  “Because.  It’s what we do.”

 

So far, Zoe hadn’t laid a hand on Cat.  That wasn’t her style; she preferred to mentally break her victims.  She left the actual breaking to Thames.  But that could come later.  Right now, she was enjoying herself.

“I wouldn’t count on him coming to save you,” she said, walking around behind the chair Cat was tied to.  Other than brief intervals to allow her to use the bathroom, she was never out of the chair.  They fed her, and she slept, if catching quick catnaps could be considered sleeping, in the chair.

“He will,” Cat stated with authority.  “My father loves me, and he won’t leave me here.”

“Then why hasn’t he come breaking down the door?  It’s been three days.  If he loved you that much, he would’ve been here by now.”

“He’s not stupid.  He’s gotta plan, gotta be careful.”

Zoe smiled sardonically and shook her head as she came around to face Cat.  “He’s probably lying in a gutter somewhere, drunk out of his mind.”

“No,” Cat said forcefully.  “He doesn’t drink anymore.  He’ll come for me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” She leaned close.  “He really doesn’t love you.  If he did, you wouldn’t still be here.”

Cat spat in her face.  “He _does_ love me.  You don’t know!  You don’t know anything about him, or me!  You wait.  You just wait.  He’ll be here, and you’ll rue the day...”

Zoe slapped her.  “Don’t spit.  It’s not nice.”  She straightened and wiped the spittle from her cheek.

“Oh, and kidnapping someone is!?  Shooting someone is??”  Cat laughed derisively.  “You don’t know the _meaning_ of the word!”

“He never wanted kids.  Said they’d be a burden.  And now?  Now he’s a broke, old, out-of-shape washed-up waste of a man.  The _last_ thing he wants is some little brat coming into his life, claiming to be his kid.”

Cat bit down on several retorts; she knew what Zoe was trying to do, and she wasn’t going to fall for it.  She knew the truth about her father, knew that he was too intelligent to charge into something blindly.  And she knew one other thing that Zoe didn’t – Alia was with him.  She’d help him find a way to get into this place safely, and get her out.  And he had Ziggy, and Sam, and Sammy Jo.  With all that brainpower, she had a feeling her rescue was going to be spectacular.  She just had to wait for the right moment to arrive.  And when it did...

“Why are you smiling?” Zoe asked, confused.  That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.  She wanted tears, she wanted anger.  She’d been at Cat for the last two days – they’d left her alone for the first day – and still hadn’t cracked her, even the smallest amount.  The little outburst earlier wasn’t enough.

“You’ll see,” was all Cat would say.

 

“So...why the uniform?” Tina asked as she brought the toast over to the table.

Al shrugged.  “Seemed like a good idea.  Figured it’d throw those cops off their game; they came here expecting distraught parents that they could emotionally manipulate, probably figured they’d get me to trip myself up, give them something they could use.  Instead they see this...well...”

“An immaculate, stoic admiral,” Tina finished, nodding.  Then she smiled at him.  “And here I thought you were wearing it because you know how turned on I get.”

Al’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he blinked a couple times.  “So, I have to wear my uniform to turn you on?  That’s sad.  That’s very sad.”  He cut the end off one of the sausages on his plate and had it halfway to his mouth when Tina leaned over and ate it.  There was a devilish glint in her eyes as she sat back, and he stared at her in surprise for a few moments.

“Admiral, I hate to interrupt,” Ziggy started.

“Then don’t,” Al growled, looking at his wife.  She smiled serenely at him, then he felt her bare toes slip under his pants leg and start rubbing his shin.

“It’s a bit of an emergency.”

“Ziggy, unless someone’s life is in danger...”

“Doctor Beckett is attempting to activate the Accelerator.”

Al shot up out of his chair and ran for the door so fast he was out of the house before the chair hit the floor.

 

“Doctor Fuller, if I might interrupt?” Ziggy asked.

The formal tone of the computer alarmed Sammy Jo.  “What’s wrong, Ziggy?”

“Your father is in Main Control...”

Sammy Jo sprinted out of her office and down the hall.  Distantly she could hear Alia following her, but right now her only concern was reaching the control room before her father did anything stupid.

 

Donna was startled to see Al, in full uniform, racing past her living room window.  A moment later she learned why when Ziggy said, “I regret to inform you that your husband is about to do something very stupid.”

She ran out of the house and nearly collided with Tina, who was trailing Al.  They ran for the elevator shed together, hoping that the lift would have returned to the surface by the time they reached it.  Fortunately they weren’t that far behind Al, and they all piled in together.  Between gasps for air, Al cursed Sam vehemently in a variety of languages, English and Italian predominant, but also some Hungarian he’d learned from one of his former wives.  It could have been funny if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“What..?” Donna managed as the elevator hurtled down ten levels.

Al ground his teeth in frustration.  “That idiot...”

Tina put a hand on his arm.  “Ziggy said Sam’s trying to activate the Accelerator.”

Donna’s face went white.  “What!?  Why?  What the hell...”

Al sighed, and slumped against the wall of the cab.  “That...dumb fight we had last night.  He probably figured he’d...”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Go back and fix things?  Go back and just...get stuck back there?”

“That’s stupid!” Tina exclaimed.  “What does he think that’s going to do?”

“He...blames himself for what’s been going on.”  Al held up a hand.  “I know.  It’s stupid.  I tried telling him that last night, but...he wouldn’t listen.”

As the elevator slowed to a stop, Tina said, “Well, he can’t power it up.  He’s got all those...” And then she remembered who’d designed the preventative measures, and swore.

Sammy Jo was just coming down the hall as they disembarked, and she glanced at Al.  “I’m sure there’s an interesting reason for the uniform,” she said as they hurried to Main Control.

“Gave the cops this morning something to think about,” Al replied, ducking to get under the door as it rose.

Sam looked up when the door started to open, and was startled by the four angry faces he saw coming towards him.  Before he even had a chance to say anything, Donna strode right up to him...and socked him in the jaw.

“Samuel John Beckett!  If you stick so much as a toe in that damned Accelerator, don’t expect me to activate the retrieval program!” she informed him angrily.

Sam blinked in shock, and rubbed his jaw.  He looked over at Tina, who was glowering, and Sammy Jo, who was scowling, and lastly at Al, who looked mad enough to rip Sam’s head off with his bare hands.  Raising his own hands, Sam stepped back from the console.

“I wasn’t,” he said simply.

Donna blinked.  “What?”

“I wasn’t going to.  Well, yeah, at first I thought I would.”  He glanced at Al, then shook his head.  “I was...not thinking clearly.”

Al scoffed.  “No shinola,” he muttered under his breath.

“I thought I could...fix things if I went back, but...” Sam shrugged.  “Where would I go?  What would I do?”  He turned to Al, pleading his case.  “Seeing how much pain you’re in, Al, it...it killed me inside.  We’ve been friends for...so long, and...it seemed like...I came home and all sorts of bad stuff kept happening.”  When Al opened his mouth to say something, Sam hurried on.  “But once I had a chance to calm down and think about it, I knew it wasn’t my fault.”

The tenseness eased out of Al’s shoulders and back at those words.  “That’s what I kept trying to tell you last night, kid,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, I know.  But I was being an... _asino_.”  He chuckled at Al’s reaction.

Al shook his head, and quoted something from one of Sam’s past Leaps.  “Stubborn as a mule and twice as slow.”

It took Sam a couple moments to recognize that expression, then he laughed.  “That fits.”

“So...if you _weren’t_ planning on getting yourself stuck back in time,” Donna cut in, still angry, “then what in the hell _were_ you doing?”

Sam smiled, leaned over and kissed her, then went back to the console.  “We need a way to get in there and get Cat out safely, right?”

Sammy Jo raised an eyebrow.  “You were thinking...what?  You’d Leap in?  But who would you replace?  Zoe, or Thames?”

“Neither.  Why can’t we use it like a transporter?”

Tina stared at him.  “It can’t be used that way, Sam.”

“Why not?” he asked reasonably.  “It was designed to transport my body back in time, right?  So...why can’t it be used to transport someone to another destination _in this time_?”

Al scoffed.  “This isn’t _Star Trek_ , Sam.  You can’t just...beam in there, snatch her, and...”  He trailed off as something came to him.

“It’d make more sense to Leap into Cat before they grabbed her,” Donna suggested.  “Not that I’m saying you should...”

“I thought of that.  But then what?  Let them grab me, instead?  Beat up the guy who came after her and Sammy Jo?”  Sam shook his head.  “They’d still be out there, and next time they’d do something worse.”

“Honey?” Tina asked, noticing how distracted her husband was.

He gave a little jump, and blinked a couple times.  “Oh.  I...ah...was thinking.”

“I figured.  What’s on your mind?”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Sammy Jo questioned.

“Depends on your definition of ‘stupid’,” Al replied with a grin.

“Oh boy.”  Sammy Jo rolled her eyes.  “I swear, between the two of you and your damn...quixotic tendencies...”

Al chuckled.  “Nothing quite so dramatic as tilting at windmills, my dear.”  He gestured to Alia, who up until now had been quietly standing by the door.  When she came over, he asked, “Can you get Ziggy exact coordinates _inside_ their project?”

She stared at him in surprise.  “I-I suppose so.  Why?”

He went over to the console and tapped the button that brought up the handlink from its storage compartment.  Picking up the device, he turned to Tina.  “How fast can you reprogram this?”

Tina took it from him with a frown.  “You can’t use the Imaging Chamber, Al,” she reminded him.

“Not the Chamber, no,” he agreed.

Sam was perplexed.  “What in the world are you up to?”

Al turned to him with a large grin.  “R2D2,” was his only explanation.

“R2...”  It took Sam a few moments to process that, and then he got what Al was suggesting, and grinned back at him.  “Brilliant!”

Al nodded modestly.  “No, it’s insane.  But if it works...”

“And for those of us whose brains weren’t synced for a decade or so?” Donna wanted to know.

Sammy Jo figured it out a moment later.  “In the first _Star Wars_ movie, Princess Leia recorded a message pleading for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi.  When Luke Skywalker got the two droids, he accidentally triggered R2’s playback feature, which projected a holographic image of the Princess...”

Tina stared at her husband as she realized what he wanted her to do.  “Al, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking...”

He turned to her.  “It’ll work.  We’ve used the handlink that way before.  When Sam was my old pool mentor Charlie “Black Magic” Walters, Ziggy worked out the trajectory for his shots and projected them on the table.  And when he was going to be electrocuted we reworked it to be a metal detector so I could find the bullet.”

“And you made those holographic dinosaurs for Teresa,” Sam remembered.

Al pointed at him.  “Bingo.  That’s what gave me the idea, actually.”

Poor Alia was completely lost.  “What are you all talking about?”

“A little...technological slight-of-hand,” Al told her.

 

“Is it my turn yet?” an impatient Thames asked early the next morning as he joined Zoe in her office.  She was sitting at her desk, alternately twiddling a pen and chewing on the end of its cap.

“Maybe later,” she replied distractedly.

“It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”

She looked up at him with a frown.  “What?”

“You’ve been at her for two days and she hasn’t cracked.  Not a temper tantrum, not a breakdown.”

Zoe sighed, just a bit of anger creeping in.  “Yes, it does bug me.  I would have thought she’d be so _easy_ to break, after all the years of Maxine’s...ministrations.”

Thames perched on the corner of her desk.  “Maybe that’s it,” he surmised.  “Maybe she...learned how to...escape the pain.”

A cold look came into Zoe’s eyes at that thought.  “Well, then, we’ll just have to give her so much pain she _can’t_ escape.”

Thames clapped his hands.  “Now you’re talking!”

 

Cat was absolutely miserable.  She was starving, for one thing; Zoe only gave her a bowl of rice a day.  With the first bowl she’d said “Just be glad we’re not holding you in a tiger cage.”  Cat had no idea what she was talking about, but didn’t really want to find out.

Every muscle was beyond merely aching.  She’d been tied to the chair for over 72 hours, with only brief respites when Zoe would let her use the bathroom.  At first she was surprised that they allowed her that “luxury,” but on second though cleaning up after her probably wasn’t high on their list of Fun Things to Do.

And she was exhausted.  She couldn’t sleep well, since it was difficult to get comfortable, and every time she’d start to drift off, either Zoe would wake her roughly, or she’d slip immediately into nightmares of being left here to rot.

But the thing that made her feel the worst wasn’t physical.  She was beginning to lose faith that she’d be rescued.  She loved her father, knew that he would do anything for her, but the reality of her situation was defeating her optimism.  She didn’t know where she was, other than “the other project,” and that was merely an assumption.  For all she knew, Thames and Zoe were holding her in an abandoned warehouse somewhere.  And if she didn’t know where she was, how...

If Cat’s hands had been free, she would’ve smacked herself in the forehead.  _She_ might not know where she was, but Ziggy would.  Unless they’d found it, she still had the wrist communicator Sammy Jo had given her months ago when she’d gone to her mother’s to pack.  She made it a point to wear it whenever she was away from home, just in case she needed to get in touch with someone back there.  It was much more reliable than a cell phone – no need for bars and towers to place a call, or fear of a dead battery.

With a bit of struggle, she was able to flex her wrists enough within the ropes to feel the reassuring metal, and she was grateful it hadn’t been removed.  It looked like nothing more than a chunky bracelet, and apparently that’s what Zoe had assumed it was.  With a bit more twisting, she was able to press it against the back of the chair, hopefully triggering the device.

“Ziggy?” she asked in a loud whisper.  “I don’t know if you can hear me, but...maybe you can lock onto my signal or something.”

She waited a few moments, but got no response.  Maybe she hadn’t actually activated it.  Or maybe it couldn’t pick up her voice because it was behind her.  She tried again, a bit louder.

“Ziggy?  Anybody?  Help.”

And then she froze when she heard the door behind her sliding open.

 

Once again, Al was striding down a long, white institutional hallway.  This time, however, he was not in uniform, as he had no one to impress, or intimidate.  The room he wanted wasn’t under guard, and he walked in, just another grieving relative as far as anyone on staff knew.

He walked to the head of the bed and looked down at the occupant, who was hooked to numerous monitors and IVs.

“Maybe the doctors are right, and you can’t hear me.  But I don’t think so.  You’re in there, somewhere.  You’re too damn stubborn not to be.  They figured you somehow got hold of a high dose of drugs and tried to kill yourself.  But we know better, don’t we?  It wasn’t yourself you tried to kill, Maxine, but me.  Of course it didn’t work.”  He snorted derisively.  “I know all about your scheme, how you tried to go back into the past and kill me the night you filed for divorce.  How you’ve been letting them take money from your alimony payments to keep their project running.   And now your little friends are at it again,” he said.  “Only this time they’ve targeted my daughter.”  He had a hard time not clenching his fists as he spoke to his comatose ex-wife.  “I promise you one thing: if they hurt my little girl, I’m going to go Terminator on their asses.”  He leaned down close to her and said quietly, “And then I’ll come for you.”

He straightened and stepped back from the bed just as Maxine’s heart monitor set off a silent alarm at the nurse’s station.  Within moments two nurses hurried into the room, and he got out of their way as they began hovering over their patient, checking vital signs and other medical things he didn’t care about.  He watched silently for a few moments, then turned and walked out.

 

Two days later, nearly a week since she’d been abducted, Al was ready to go after his daughter.  Everyone had worked feverishly to get things ready; Tina, Alia and Ziggy had worked out the virus to take down the other computer, and Al had come up with a very crazy plan to get himself in.  Everything was extremely risky, but they had no other options.

Now, on the morning, they all met in Main Control to go over things one last time.  Al got there first, and was going over last-minute details with Ziggy, while pacing like a caged panther, when the rest arrived.  The fact that he was clad entirely in black only aided that comparison. 

“You ready?” Sam asked him.

Al pulled his handgun from his shoulder holster, ejected the clip and double-checked that it was fully loaded, slapped it back in place and nodded at Sam.  He slipped the gun back and then picked up his black leather jacket from where he’d draped it across the console.  His jaw was clenched tightly, and his eyes were narrowed in barely contained anger.

“Here,” Sammy Jo said, offering him a small object.

He took it from her and frowned.  “A hearing aid, Sammy Jo?  Really?”

She smiled faintly.  “That’s what I’m hoping they’ll assume it is,” she replied.  “It’s really an earpiece so you can hear Ziggy once she locks on Cat.”

He grinned briefly.  “Good thinking.  Although later we’re going to have a conversation about respecting your elders.”

She shook her head and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  “I have nothing but respect for you, Al.  Always have.”

Tina, worry clear on her face, handed him a flash drive.  “The virus is self-activating.  All you have to do is plug this in, anywhere, and it’ll launch.”  After he slipped the drive into a small inner pocket of his jacket, she handed him the handlink.  “This should buy you some time, but not much.  Three minutes at the most, so don’t activate it until you really need to.”

He nodded; she’d already told him all this last night, but he knew she was nervous and scared and trying to keep her mind off what he was about to do.  Sliding the handlink into an outer pocket, he pulled her to him and held her, feeling the tremors passing through her body.  “I’ll be all right,” he promised her quietly.  “I’ve done this sort of thing before.”  He pulled back and looked at her.  “Hey.”  Gently wiping tears off her cheeks, he smiled and said, “And after this?  We’re going on vacation.  Just the two of us.  All right?”

She managed a small smile.  “No ex-wives?”

Al chuckled.  “No ex-wives, I promise.” 

“Promise me one other thing?”

“Hmm?”

“Shave when this is over.”

Al grinned.  “You mean to tell me you’re not into the scruffy look?”

Tina wrinkled her nose.  “Not in the least.”  She kissed him, despite the two day’s worth of stubble.  “Now go save your daughter.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Sam asked once more, hoping this time he could change his friend’s mind.

Al shook his head.  “Thanks, Sammy, but...I’ve got this.  I...well, I feel I owe her one.  Ya know?”

Sam nodded.  “But I owe you more than one, Al.”

Al waved it off.  “Forget about it.”  He glanced over at Donna.  “Besides, do you think she’d forgive me if something happened to you?”

“Do you think Tina would forgive _me_?” Sam riposted.

Al sighed and shook his head.  “Sam, really, thanks, but...I’ve got this.  It’s gonna be tricky enough for me to get in there...”

“What if Cat needs medical attention?  What if something happens to you, and you can’t get her out?  Two people would even the odds.  I could even...eliminate one of them for you.”

“No.  If my plan works, I need them alive to get in.  Once I’m in there, and...set things in motion...”  He sighed heavily.  “First step is getting in.  Then finding Cat, and getting her the hell out of there.  Then disabling the project.”

“But I could find Cat and get her out while you’re uploading the virus.  Once they realize what you’re up to...”

Al growled.  Not in frustration at Sam’s doggedness, but in resignation.  “I hate it when you use logic to defeat my emotional arguments.”

Sam grinned.  “So, does that mean I can go with you?”

Al looked over at Donna.  “Are you ok with me risking his life?”

She smiled, but it was bittersweet.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  She walked over and kissed each of them in turn.  “Go.  Be safe.  Bring Cat home.”

Sam hugged his wife tightly.  “We will.  I promise.”

Before he could head for the door, however, Al held up a hand to stop him.  “I’m not letting you out of here until you’re fully dressed.”

Sam frowned for a moment, until it came to him.  “Bullet-proof vest?”

Al nodded.  “Never track a psychotic killer without one,” he quipped with a sideways grin.

“All right, I’ll go get one.  But if you give me the slip while I’m in the armory, I’ll kick your butt six ways from Sunday when you get home.”

Al chuckled and shook his head.  “Just go, will you?  I’m not gonna wait all day.”

The temptation was strong to do just that, to ditch Sam and go after his daughter by himself.  But Al knew that Sam was right – having them both there _would_ increase the odds of the rescue being successful. 

As if in confirmation of his thoughts, Ziggy predicted, “The probability of your being able to bring her home safely has just increased 20%.”

“Thanks, Ziggy.”

“You’re welcome.  And...good luck, Admiral.”

Al grimaced.  “Thanks.  I’ll probably need a little luck.”

 

Sam was pleasantly surprised to find Al waiting in the hallway for him.  He’d put on a bullet-proof vest, which was actually more like a T-shirt than the standard police-issued vest.  While thin enough to wear under clothing without being detected, it had the ability to stop a bullet, which Al had learned the hard way not too long ago.  He’d also grabbed a handgun, but unlike Al’s, his was loaded with tranquilizer darts.  Sam had killed people in the past (literally) but was hoping this time he wouldn’t have to; he was finally getting some restful sleep, and shooting someone in cold blood was likely to ruin his chances of anything like normal sleep for a long time to come.

They rode the elevator up together in silence, both men preoccupied with dark thoughts of what was to come.  Sam slowed to a halt, however, when he realized they were heading for Al’s Ferrari.

“We’re taking your car?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Al replied, opening his door and preparing to get in.

“It doesn’t have a backseat,” Sam pointed out, feeling a bit foolish; he should have realized this sooner and suggested they take a different vehicle.  One a bit more suited for a rescue mission.  But then Al had been planning on going on his own, and the car would’ve served just fine.

“I know.  That’s why you’re gonna go borrow Donna’s keys and follow me.”  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a card, which he held out to Sam.  “Call Detective Hawke.  Tell her where we’re going.  There’s a small chance one of them might survive.”

Sam took the card, completely baffled.  “What do I tell her?”

Al shrugged.  “Whatever you think will get her out there.  Just her, though, Sam.  The last thing we need is the whole damn police department showing up.”

“So in other words, _don’t_ call the cavalry?”  He tried for a grin, but failed.

Al shook his head and got into his car.  “I gotta go, Sam.  The more time I waste, the more they have to...”

Sam nodded.  “I know.  I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Ziggy will give you the directions.”  Just before he closed his door, he leaned out and gave Sam a bit of surprising news.  “Alia said they’re located just outside of Moriarty.  How’s that for a kick in the butt?”

Sam blinked and stared at him for a few moments.  Al chuckled, pulled his door shut, and roared out of the parking lot, leaving Sam coughing in a cloud of dust.  Ferraris were fast, but years ago Al had gotten his car modified to go even faster.  Sam shook his head as he headed back to get his wife’s keys, wondering what it was about fighter pilots and speed.

 

Thames was getting frustrated, and that was a dangerous mood for him to be in.  He and Zoe had been taking turns working their prisoner over for the last two days, and the most interesting thing she’d done was passed out when he’d dislocated the first finger.

He was amazed at how much mental and physical abuse she could take, and was rather interested to see how much more they could inflict before she finally broke.  Maybe that was the answer.  Maybe he needed to start breaking things, rather than just dislocating them.  A broken shin was a lot more painful than beatings and twisting limbs.

So while Zoe was berating the girl for clinging to the foolish false hope that her father or someone else would come for her, he went to his locker to select the proper tool.  Ten steps out of the Holding Room, though, he was distracted by the muffled, but distinct, sound of a gunshot.

“Lothos, did I just hear a gun being fired?” he asked with a slight frown.

“You did,” the computer affirmed.  “There is a man lurching around outside, shouting profanities and waving a handgun.”  A nearby monitor flickered to life, showing a view of the southwest corner of the facility.

Thames grinned.  “Now it’s gonna get interesting!” he enthused, slapping and rubbing his hands together.  “Inform Zoe that I’m going to go...greet our visitor.”

“Shouldn’t you go armed?” the computer inquired logically.

“He’s an old man, drunken out of his gourd by the looks of him.  I’ll be fine.”

“Very well.”

 

Al staggered towards the building, bottle clenched in one hand, the other waving his gun around in a vague way.  It didn’t look like much, just an old, run-down abandoned warehouse, but Alia assured him that it actually housed the other project.  Rather audacious, hiding in plain sight as it were, but given how far away they were from any main roads he doubted they got much in the way of trespassers.

He’d made a quick stop on his way here and purchased a cheap bottle of wine at a small convenience store, paying with cash and doing his best to seem like just another down-on-his-luck customer on his way to drown his sorrows.  A half-mile away from his destination, he’d parked his car (hoping against hope that everything would be over quickly and no harm would come to his vehicle) and hiked in.  Before he got close enough for the security cameras to pick him up, he’d dribbled some wine down the front of his shirt, took a mouthful and swished it around before spitting it out (It really was horrible stuff) and un-holstered his gun.  Now his “drunken fool” disguise was complete.  With luck Thames wouldn’t get close enough to see how clear his eyes were until it was too late.

His plan was highly dangerous, and he was grateful Sam wasn’t with him; there was a high probability he’d be killed, rather than taken inside as he hoped.  But it was the only way he could think of to get in.  Once in there, he would have to act fast to find Cat and free her, and activate the virus.  Help was over an hour and a half away; he couldn’t count on Sam getting there in time.

Now he loosed another invective at where he assumed the closest camera was, and fired off another shot.  He wasn’t particularly worried about his gun being taken from him, since he had other weapons at his disposal.  His hands and feet were lethal.

Muttering a string of nonsense in Italian, he squinted at the building.  In a few moments he was awarded for his charade by a tall, smartly dressed African-American man sauntering towards him.

“So.  The famed Admiral arrives at last,” he sneered, getting close enough to Al to smell the spilled wine, but well out of striking distance.  “This is what we’ve been worried about all these years?”

“Mongrel,” Al growled, weaving towards him, the gun dangling loosely in his hand, apparently forgotten.  “Where’s my daughter, you cur?”

“Such language,” Thames said, shaking his head.  He stepped to the side as Al lurched towards him, and sunk his fist into his stomach.  “We’re gonna have to teach you proper respect,” he added, catching Al as he sagged.

Although he’d been expecting the punch, Al was still slightly winded, and the slump was real.  He couldn’t not react to being sucker-punched, even though his martial arts training, and his experience in the boxing ring, took over.  He let the gun fall to the ground, let out what he hoped was a convincing grunt of pain, and literally fell into Thames’ arms.

“Good grief you reek,” Thames complained, wrinkling his nose as he dragged Al inside.  “Gonna have to show your little girl what’s become of her daddy, let her see the reality.”  He backed into an office and dumped Al unceremoniously on the couch.  “Might just be the last thing she sees.”  He made a face and shuddered, then left to tell Zoe the good news.

 

“Is your friend insane?” Detective Hawke asked Sam as they flew down the road.  Ten minutes after he’d called her, claiming Al had heard from the kidnappers and was going to meet them, alone, she’d shown up in a plain brown sedan.  Now they were heading north on Interstate 25 towards Albuquerque, then they’d catch historic Highway 66 towards Moriarty.

“I’ve asked myself that more than a few times,” Sam admitted, “but no.  He’s a father desperate to get his daughter back safely.”

“I can understand that, but this is seriously risky.”

Sam nodded.  “He was a fighter pilot in the Navy,” he told her.  “He’s used to taking risks.”

“Still...” She trailed off and shook her head.  “This is the weirdest kidnapping case I’ve ever heard of.  Usually there’s some kind of demand from the kidnappers, ransom or an impossible favor or something.  And it usually doesn’t take them a week to make contact.”

“We’re a bit...off the grid,” Sam answered with a slight smirk.  “Maybe they just had trouble tracking him down.”

“And that’s another thing.  Why him?  Why go after his daughter?  I mean, I know he’s a highly decorated Admiral.  Quite dashing in uniform, by the way.  But what were they hoping for?”

It took Sam a few moments to recover from her side remark, and a few more to decide how to answer.  Finally, he asked, “What do you know about quantum physics, Detective Hawke?”

“Call me Tamsin, please,” she requested.  “Is this where you tell me your string theory?”  She took her eyes off the road and glanced over at him in time to see his jaw drop, and she chuckled.  “I know who you are, Doctor Beckett.  So, this all has something to do with your theory of time travel?”

Sam could feel his face drain of color.  He swallowed awkwardly and mumbled, “Oh boy.”

 

Al couldn’t believe his luck.  Not only had Thames not searched him for any other weapons, but he’d deposited him in someone’s office.  According to Alia only personal computers weren’t connected to their version of Ziggy; those in the offices were.  He waited a few moments to make sure Thames wasn’t coming back, then got up, crossed to the computer and booted it up.  As soon as it was running, he plugged the flash drive in.  It only took a moment for the computer to recognize the new hardware, and then the virus launched itself.  From what Tina had told him, it was incredibly destructive; in two minutes it’d completely wipe out every component of the hybrid computer, essentially reducing it to useless scrap.

He went to the open door and checked both ways down the hall before stepping into the corridor.  He pulled out his handlink and turned it on.  Originally he’d hoped they could rig the device to project a hologram of some sort as a ruse, but Sammy Jo had suggested a better use for it; once it was activated Ziggy could sync it with the signal from Cat’s wrist communicator, whether or not it was turned on.

“I’m picking up Cat’s signal,” Ziggy informed him in his ear.  “It’s quite faint, but it appears to be coming from your right.”

Al nodded to himself and headed down the hall.  He hadn’t wanted to risk being overheard, so he’d opted to not wear his own communicator.  It was frustrating to not be able to give them progress reports, but stealth was more important.

“The signal is getting stronger.  Approximately three and a half meters from your current position there should be a T-junction.  Take another right, and Alia says you should be nearing the Holding Room, which is where they kept their Visitors during Leaps.”

Al hurried down the hall, paused at the intersection, and started down the right-hand corridor.  He could hear voices up ahead, and he slowed.  He glanced at his watch.  Alia had told him that if the proper code wasn’t entered after power was lost, the automatic self-destruct would start, with a seven-minute countdown.

“Cutting it close,” he muttered to himself.

 

Cat kept her eyes closed.  Or, rather, she kept her _eye_ closed, as the other one was swollen shut from this morning’s beating.  Thames had just barged in, ranting about some “drunken old fool” apparently waving a gun around outside.  His voice got on her nerves, and she was trying to ignore him.  No one could just...stumble across this place.  Zoe had assured her of that – they were so far away from any other sign of civilization that it would take a very determined vagrant to find the warehouse.

But then Thames said something that made her heart pound painfully in her chest, aggravating her bruised ribs.

“It’s him.  It’s the Admiral.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.  Idiot’s drunk out of his mind, shooting at the windows and going on about his daughter.”

“What’d you do with him?”

“Socked him in the gut and dumped him in your office.”

“You took his gun away, I presume.”

“Of course.  Not that he could hit the broad side of a barn.  He’s that besotted.”

“Did you search him for other weapons?”

Thames scoffed.  “He _reeks_.  I didn’t touch him longer than I had to.  He’s no threat.  We can work him over while he’s passed out, dump him and the girl’s body somewhere in the desert.  Let the carrion birds fight over them.”

“Idiot!” Zoe scolded.  “How do you know it wasn’t all an act?”

“It was,” Al informed her as he strode into the room.  He glanced at Thames and shook his head.  “You really shouldn’t judge a person on the way he looks,” he reprimanded.  “Or smells.”

Thames backed up a step and darted a look at Zoe.  “He was out cold!  I know he was!”

“And you...are an imbecile,” she informed him.

“Which is what I was counting on,” Al said, walking further into the room.  Zoe and Thames were on either side of Cat, and when he got a good look at her he had to fight to control his emotions; her face was a mass of bruises and dried blood, one eye was swollen completely shut, the skin around it a deep purple, and her lower lip was split.  She looked worse than she had after Maxine had beat her.

“I’m here, baby girl.  I’m gonna get you out of here,” he promised.

“Over my dead body,” Thames proclaimed, advancing on him.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Cat opened her good eye and tried to focus on the flurry of moves between her father and Thames, but it wasn’t easy.  Thames started the attack by trying to punch Al, who blocked it on his forearm and threw an overhand which connected just under Thames’ right eye.  He followed that by dropping the arm he’d blocked with and delivered a short straight-punch to Thames’ solar plexus.

He wasn’t the only landing blows, however.  Thames caught him on the upper shoulder with a haymaker and then tried to follow it with a rabbit punch, but Al hunched his shoulder up to protect his neck.  Thames then stepped in and got in a quick series of jabs at Al’s stomach before dancing back out of range.

Al staggered backwards, but he was far from finished, although his right arm was tingling from the two solid blows it had taken, and his stomach was rather sore.  He took a few deep breaths, keeping his eyes on Thames, and then said idly, “Alia sends her regards, by the way.”

“What?” Thames panted, clearly confused.

Al grinned, looking as if he wasn’t as winded as his opponent.  “Didn’t you know?  She’s with us.  How do you think I found you?”

“That traitorous bitch!” Zoe spat.

Al glanced at her, about to say something, and Thames used that opportunity to charge at him.  Al’s guard wasn’t down, however.  He merely waited a moment and then stepped aside, putting his hands on Thames’ back and adding a shove to his momentum, which sent him clear across the room to collide headfirst with the wall.

“One down,” Al pointed out, turning to face Zoe, whose face was contorted in rage.  He made a beckoning motion with one hand, and she growled at him.

Just then the power went out, plunging them temporarily into darkness.  But in a moment emergency lights above the door came on, bathing them in a sickly yellow light barely strong enough to see each other by.

“You are a dead man,” she threatened.  Her fury was focused on Al, and if she noticed the change in the level of light it didn’t faze her.

“Didn’t work too well for you the last time,” he remarked.

“This is all your fault, you know,” she claimed, gesturing at Cat.  “If you’d just died the way you were supposed to, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Yeah, well sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t plan on dying until I’m good and ready.  Say...twenty years from now.  You, on the other hand, will probably die today.”

“Not if I can help it,” she stated, pulling a knife from the top of her boot.

Al stepped in towards her, planted that foot and did a reverse roundhouse kick, shattering her wrist.  As she doubled over, clenching her wrist, he brought his knee up to connect with her chin and then hit the back of her skull, knocking her out.

Wasting no time, Al scooped up the knife and set about freeing his daughter.  “I am _so_ sorry for all this, honey,” he said, choking down the sob.  “I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner, but...”

“It’s all right,” Cat assured him, her own voice thick with emotion.

“No, baby girl, it’s not all right.”  Al sawed through the rope binding her to the chair, knowing they didn’t have much more time to get out.  “Can you stand?”

Cat nodded and did, but she was weak and her legs were wobbly.  “What about them?”

“This whole place is going to blow in less than four minutes,” Al informed her.

Cat’s eye widened.  “You planted explosives?” she asked, shocked.

Al chuckled and shook his head.  “Even for a retired Admiral, explosives strong enough to take this place out are hard to come by.  No.  Alia said there’s a built-in self-destruct program that kicked in when the power went.”

“Oh.”  She started to frown, but it hurt too much.  “How’d you...oh.  The virus.”

Al slipped his arm around her waist and supported her as they headed for the door.  “Yeah.  That’s part of what took me so long to get here.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” she told him as they got out into the corridor and hurried the best they could to get out.  “Although Thames was right about one thing – you stink.”

Al laughed.  “You’re not exactly a bouquet of roses, you know.”

Suddenly a loud, artificial male voice intoned, “Self-destruct sequence activated.  Silent countdown has passed.  Verbal countdown commences.  Two minutes and counting.  1:59, 1:58...”

“We’re not gonna make it,” Cat worried, looking down the long corridor.

“Like hell,” Al denied, stopping long enough to scoop her up, then turning and running for the outer door.  Every muscle in his body screamed in protest, but he clenched his teeth and pushed himself to get them out safely.  They’d make it.  They had to make it.  Just another six feet, four, the door was closer now, they’d get there...

 

Sam had briefly filled Tamsin in on his project, and the existence of the other project, so she understood who they were up against and why they’d taken Cat.  And now, while Al was heading down the hallway to find her, Tamsin was telling Sam how she knew about him, and why she was taking his claim of having been a time traveler for the last decade in stride. 

“Becky told me all about you when we were in college,” she said.

Sam frowned.  “Becky?”

“Becky Pruitt.  She and her mother Carol lived in Oklahoma in...”

“1958,” Sam finished with a groan.  But whether from the memory, or the bouncing of the car as they sped down the dirt road was hard to tell.  One benefit of traveling with a cop was not having to worry about speed limits, and they’d made fantastic time.  However, the road they were on now was heavily rutted, and Sam knew he’d be aching in the morning.

“I used to think it was just a wild story, how this big scary guy broke into their house and took them hostage, and then when he saw himself on the news he suddenly...changed, and claimed he was a time traveler from the future and he couldn’t leave until his friend got back.”

“But?” Sam asked, glancing over at her.

“But...years later I heard talk of this brilliant scientist who was going to work on a top-secret project out in the desert somewhere, and I got to thinking.” She shrugged.  “It made sense.  And if that were true, if someone really _could_ travel through time, occupy other people’s lives for a little while and make things better for them, then...anything could be possible.”

“Yeah,” Sam said noncommittally.  He wasn’t too happy how his exploits in the past seemed to be all suddenly catching up with him.  What next?

“Hey, didn’t you say your friend drove a red Ferrari?” Tamsin suddenly asked, looking off to the side and pointing.

 “Yeah, that’s Al’s car.  The project’s gotta be around here somewhere.”  He keyed on his wrist communicator and asked, “How close are we, Ziggy?”

“Half-mile away, Doctor.  The Admiral has already uploaded the virus.”

“That means we have...nine minutes to get there?”

“Better hang onto something,” Tamsin informed him cheerfully, before tromping on the accelerator.

 

Shortly after Al and Cat had left the Holding Room, Thames came to.  His head was throbbing, his neck was sore, and the rest of his body felt as if he’d been run over by a stampede of housewives at a 70% off sale.

Getting painfully to his feet, he rubbed his forehead and tried to figure out what had happened.  He spied Zoe lying on the floor near the empty chair, and a moment later he heard the programmed voice announce “Self-destruct sequence activated.  Silent countdown has passed.  Verbal countdown commences.  Two minutes and counting.  1:59, 1:58...”

“God dammit!”  He lurched to the door, knowing he only had one chance to get out alive.  It had been his idea to rig the place with C4 and a self-destruct timer; they couldn’t risk their enemies getting a hold of anything from here.

As he stumbled down the corridor, intent on saving his own life, he never noticed Al and Cat escaping.  He also wasn’t aware that Zoe was close behind him.

 

Al’s chest was heaving as he tried to get enough air into his lungs.  Silently cursing himself for the long years of cigar smoking, he concentrated on getting one foot in front of the other, striving to hear the countdown above his pounding heart and feet thudding on the cement floor.

“1:38, 1:37, 1:36...”

“Dad.”  There was so much fear in that one word that Al had to bite his lower lip to keep the sob down.

“We’ll make it, honey,” he promised again, his eyes fixed on the door ahead.

 

Zoe knew where Thames was headed.  She’d come to moments after he did, and heard the same warning.  Picking up Al’s gun, which had dropped out of Thames’ pocket during the fight, she took off after him.  No way she was going to let him get away!  The bastard.  Only thinking of himself.  If _anyone_ was going to use the Accelerator to get out of here, it was going to be _her_.

 

Sam kicked the door open and burst into the complex, just as Al staggered and nearly went down.  Tamsin was right behind him, and she quickly took Cat from Al’s arms, while Sam grabbed his friend and wheeled around to get him out of there.

“45, 44, 43...”

 

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Zoe demanded, leveling the gun at Thames as he was rapidly powering up the Accelerator.

“Drop dead, bitch,” he spat without looking up.  The back-up generator had been his idea, too; it had just enough juice to power the Accelerator for one use.

“You first,” she suggested, and shot him in the head.  Dropping the gun, she hurried for the Accelerator, which was just coming online.  It’d be close; it took a full minute for it to reach full power.  But maybe just being in the chamber would protect her from the explosion.  If the damn door would just rise...and then she belatedly realized that the bullet had passed through Thames’ skull and struck the control pad, sealing the door.

“No,” she murmured, sinking to her knees and shaking her head.  “No.  Dammit...no.”

“30, 29, 28, 27...”

 

Al and Cat were sharing a hospital room.  His bruises were nothing compared to hers, although he did have a sprained wrist, and they wanted to keep him overnight for observation for a suspected concussion.

He’d been relieved beyond words to learn that she hadn’t been raped, which was his worst fear.  Her ribs had taken a beating again, a few fingers had been dislocated, she was dehydrated and starving, but nothing had been broken.  Not even her spirit.

“It’s not your fault, Dad,” she told him for what felt like the hundredth time.  “They were insane.  If it hadn’t been me, they would’ve gone after Sammy Jo.  Or Tina.  Anyone to get at you and hurt you.  They wanted to drive you mad with grief, break you so completely you’d kill yourself.  Then they’d go after Sam.”

It took Al a while to find his voice, and then he said, “Well, they got what was coming to them.”

She smiled at him.  “Hoist by their own petard.”

He blinked, and then chuckled.  “Rather apt description.”

After a while, she said, “When Zoe brought the rice the first time, she said something about a tiger cage.  I wonder if she meant normally they locked up their prisoners or something.”

“No,” Al said quietly.  “She was referring to me.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat.  “When I was...taken by the Viet Cong, they...locked me in a cage, so small I couldn’t stand or sit comfortably.  All they fed me...for seven years...was a bowl of rice.  One stinking, weevil-infested bowl of rice a day.” He grimaced at the memory.  “And rainwater to rinse it down.”

Just then there was a knock on the door, and Sam stuck his head in.  “You guys up for a visitor?”

Al managed a smile.  “Come on in, Sam.”

Sam held the door open...for Alia.  She came in tentatively, and said, “I...I just...wanted to see how you were, and...to let you know I’m leaving.”

“Oh?  You mean you don’t want to join our merry band?” Al asked, half-teasingly.

“Actually...”  She smiled, and shook her head.  “Tempting as that sounds, I’m going to find my family.  Ziggy was able to find out who my mother was, and...”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Cat enthused.

“Turns out my mother was in the Navy, too,” Alia went on.  “A nurse, in fact.  She and my father...well...I guess theirs wasn’t the happiest marriage; he slept around, a lot, and...she met a young pilot and had an affair.”  She started blushing, and had a hard time looking at Al as she told them what Ziggy had learned of her past.  “She got pregnant, but she didn’t know if the father was her husband, or the young pilot.  My father...was away on a tour, and she gave the baby up.  He never knew.  She did name me Alia, for the pilot.”

Al swallowed hard, but his voice still came out thick when he asked, “What was your mother’s name?”

“Lisa.  Lieutenant Lisa Sherman.”

Al and Sam exchanged looks at that little bit of news, and said “oh boy” simultaneously.


End file.
